10 Adrianoooooo

"They got Adriano!" Chevalier screamed, ducking behind the corner, barely avoiding a blazing toroid that melted the armored tunnel like butter.

"Those bastards!" someone answered back.

The situation turned dire. As the squid waved the gasping Adriano as his personal meat shield, the three decimated fireteams hesitated on returning fire.

One thing was abandoning a dead stranger, but shooting a comrade? Especially for the newbies that had lived civilians' lives no longer than a few days ago, this meant murder, and they couldn't bring themselves to press the trigger.

For veterans who lived through dire situations, homicide wasn't as taboo. Not even in the future, the human race had become one single united front. Small factions clashed in the shadows, and human greed fed on the flames of war.

Still, for a Folgore, a conscripted soldier shoved in a war not of his designs, the only people they could rely on were their brothers and sisters in arms. Betraying that trust and shooting on a comrade was unacceptable.

"We got to save him!" Charlie charged forward, ready to jeopardize his life to repay his life debt.

However, faster than him, a new figure leaped in action, as fast and silent as a jaguar. The servomechanisms of its arms shot into action. They stabbed two identical daggers into the squid's back, easily overwhelming the depleted energy shield they pierced two of the alien's three hearts.

Blue blood sprayed like a fountain on the power armor, matching the same blue color of its paint and covering Rosa's name tag. Even with an extra heart still pumping blood, death loomed on the cephalopod. It collapsed on the floor, still holding Adriano in its armored tentacle.

It tried raising the gun; however, its limbs had lost strength and couldn't move, but his brain still worked, and it could see the armored figure kneeling and trying to free the prisoner.

With his last struggle, it activated the molecular blades on its tentacles, ready to slice the head off its prisoner and maybe the hand of the offender that fatally wounded it.

High-frequency blades emerged from the armored tentacles, the tips barely touching Adriano's neck, slicing off his throat and clashing violently with Rosa's armor.

Had she retracted her hand and left Adriano to die, she could have finished the fight without a scratch. Instead, she gripped the tentacle harder and untangled it from Adriano's neck. The molecular slicing blades managed to make it through the plates of armor and slice into her flesh, drawing a grunt of pain, but withstanding the pain, Rosa pulled the chainsaw-like limb away from Adriano.

Her mangled hand dripped on the floor as she threw the tentacle away and attended to the fatally wounded Folgore. "Medic, quick!"

She called through Oracle to all the soldiers in her vicinity. Team Romeo and Juliet, hot on her trail, were the first to arrive on the scene. Four medic specialists threw themselves at Adriano, spraying the area with a gel-like green substance that would stop the bleeding and earn them some extra time.

"What are you doing? He needs some Panacea!" Rosa pointed, annoyed at their incompetence. However, betraying her expectations, none of them or any incoming Folgores offered a vial of Panacea. Instead, they looked around awkwardly.

"What? Have you exhausted all of your doses already?" she asked, surprised. The battle hadn't lasted that long, and Panaceas were only used for the heaviest of injuries. How could a total of five teams not have one vial between them?

A medic scoffed and then replied. "What exhausted! Since when are our lives worth so much to the Republic that they would give us essential supplies like Panacea."

Rosa's face darkened. She had heard the stories of how cheap the Folgore division armed its soldiers, but this surpassed her imagination.

She would have offered hers, but her Oracle automatically injected all three of her vials as she fought the Gu'ranti, fixing her almost melting brain and various internal injuries.

Biting her lips, she checked Adriano's declining vital signs and made a split decision.

She picked up Adriano in a princess carry with a single motion and ordered in a curt tone. "We have to go. Now!"

There was no way for Adriano to survive without immediate medical attention, so they had to hurry. Every second that passed, his chances would only get worse.

"Hang on, soldier." She whispered and began walking through the mass of dead aliens towards the extraction point.

Moving in a protective circle, the rest of the Folgores cleared the way, throwing odd glances between the Republic's spec operator and Adriano.

Republic forces were close to the best thing you could see on the battlefield. However, at the same time, they acted extremely cold towards Folgores, as if looking at them like a modern human would look at a monkey.

And just like them, so did most Republican forces.

So rumors and speculations began spreading like wildfire when they saw a commonly standoffish spec operator carry Adriano as if he was one of them.

Did the two of them know from before? Were they secret lovers?

Nobody knew the answers, but it didn't stop the curious comments and looks.

As the tank-like rosa carried a barely conscious Adriano, whose arms swayed like tree branches as she moved, Team Charlie's remnants, especially its captain, stood at the forefront, clearing every corner in a hurry intentioned to bring back alive their teammate.

"Contact!" the rearguard screamed as he saw a lizard peek its scaly head out from behind a corner.

Immediately the two parties began trading fire.

"We can't stop here! Two people keep up the suppressive fire. As for the rest, we need to proceed forward." Rosa barked through her Oracle terminal.

The soldiers looked at each other with awkward eyes, afraid of staying behind in enemy territory. However, two brave Folgores volunteered a moment later.

The demolition expert from Team Charlie that gave his mortar round to Adriano and the tech that had survived thanks to Adriano's quick thinking.

Rosa nodded, internally praising their courage. "Just buy us a few minutes and then retreat. We will keep a clear path for you." She ultimately said before turning around and marching out, followed by the rest.

"Helluva woman, eh?" The demo said, shooting from behind the corner at the pinned enemy troops.

In response, the tech chuckled dryly. "Next time I get shoot, I want her as my commanding officer." He added, replacing the demo.

"My name is Nigel, by the way." The demo said, switching again with tech. "you know, just in case..." As Nigel seemed to want to add something, the tech cut him off. "I'm Kabir, and hold that thought until we get back to the barrack, alright?"

Kabir let out a brilliant smile and switched with a dazed Nigel.

After a moment, Nigel smiled back and nodded. "Alright."

--------------

The trip back continued with a few more hiccups. Apparently, the aliens had restored control to the mainframe, and their patrols weren't being correctly marked on the map.

A few Folgores met sudden ends when they walked right into an enemy trap or stumbled by mistake on passing enemy fireteams.

As time went on, the losses started piling up, and the squad found itself cornered a few hundred meters from the teleportation gate.

Thick enemy forces had surrounded their way out, and as time went on, reinforcements forced them to a dead-end, at the bottom of a U-shaped section of a corridor, where enemies advanced from both sides.

Holding back a curse, unlike her comrades of chance, Rosa contacted the HQ. "We are pinned down from both sides, but we are close to the exit. We request an extraction team."

"There should be a door to your right. Hide inside. Cavalry is coming." The unusually helpful HQ's response startled Rosa for a second before she regained her bearing.

"Everyone in!" She ordered without bothering with explanations. Her Oracle interfaced with the door, using the stolen codes that hadn't been replaced yet, and opened it with a single command.

The Folgores quickly ran inside, followed by Charlie, that closed the door behind him. Without the threat of human suppression fire, the alien forces quickly swarmed the corridor and surrounded the entrance.

Guiding them, a squid officer made its way through the crowd, ready to slice the door with its tentacle blades.

Inside, the two last soldiers of the original five fireteams looked at the door in worry, bunkering behind every piece of furniture for their last stand.

That's when loud thumps began echoing from the left wall, which was, coincidentally, the outermost wall of the ship.

The squid and enemy soldiers turned their weapons as a sense of foreboding alerted the squid to run. However, its high-born honor kept it rooted on the spot, ready to fight.

The banging on the wall became louder, and now the floors began shaking slightly. One particularly cowardly lizard turned tail and fled for a second before being sliced in half by a casual swing of the squid.

"Deserters will be executed on the spot!" It reminded them in his native tongue, acting as a commissar.

in Rosa's head a familiar voice called out, calming down her anxiety. "Cavalry's here. Sis."

In front of the nervous aliens, the wall was torn away by a mechanical hand; A Folgore OWL, or Offensive Mechanized Liberator, burst through the crack, and immediately opened fire with his wrist-mounted Gatling gun while leaing forwards towards the enemy lines.

Those that didn't get minced by the first high caliber Gatling salvo futilely returned fire, their shots melting as they met the mecha's energy shield.

"You nasty boys just got yourselves the spanking of a lifetime." The female pilot of the mecha said, grinning like a fox in a hen house.

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